Consider a 2012 study, led by psychologists Wilhelm Hofmann and Roy Baumeister, that outfitted 205 adults with beepers that activated at randomly selected times {this is the experience sampling method discussed in Part 1}. When the beeper sounded, the subject was asked to pause for a moment to reflect on desires that he or she was currently feeling or had felt in the last thirty minutes, and then answer a set of questions about these desires. After a week, the researchers had gathered more than 7,500 samples. Here's the short version of what they found: People fight desires all day long. As Baumeister summarized in his subsequent book, Willpower {co-authored with the science writer John Tierney}: "Desire turned out to be the norm, not the exception." The five most common desires these subjects fought include, not surprisingly, eating, sleeping, and sex. But the top five list also included desires for "taking a break from {hard} work… checking e-mail and social networking sites, surfing the web, listening to music, or watching television." The lure of the Internet and television proved especially strong: The subjects succeeded in resisting these particularly addictive distractions only around half the time. These results are bad news for this rule's goal of helping you cultivate a deep work habit. They tell us that you can expect to be bombarded with the desire to do anything but work deeply throughout the day,
( Cal Newport )
[ Deep Work: Rules for Focused ]
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